


Sometimes You Have to Lose Your Arms to Learn How to Hug

by aug325, CephalonGhost



Series: Membrane's Guide to Becoming a Better Parent: LOSE YOUR FUCKING ARMS [4]
Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Canon Compliant, Disability and Rehabilitation, If Jhonen won't fill the gaps and explain shit then I WILL, Professor Membrane Tries to Be a Better Parent, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24901342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aug325/pseuds/aug325, https://archiveofourown.org/users/CephalonGhost/pseuds/CephalonGhost
Summary: And more.Picking up after: The Right to Keep and Bear ArmsImagine being the world's "Man of Science" and not knowing how the fuck hugging works.
Series: Membrane's Guide to Becoming a Better Parent: LOSE YOUR FUCKING ARMS [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1782715
Comments: 147
Kudos: 196





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back at it again with researching things until I give myself a headache.

The feeling of having functional prostheses again was really a wonderful thing.

This was the first thought that came into the Professor’s mind after donning the latest prototypes for his potential new arms.

Unlike the first pair, these weren’t composed of printed plastic and were instead metal fabricated through the same means. The resulting arms were this both sturdier and heavier, even with the pieces of the outer shell only 1/5th of the projected thickness and the lightest alloys still compatible being used. And the current projected final version was only going to weigh even more. The weight of each arm prosthetic was estimated to sit around 25 pounds, and it was because of all this additional weight he’d been going through such extensive physical training at home. Especially if the firepower he requested be a part of the final product got installed. And he still _very much_ insisted that they were.

The first prototype for his spinal harness also had a bit of weight to it. Nowhere near as hefty as the arms to the point it was hardly noticeable. The intended purpose of the harness was both integrating the prosthesis with his nervous system and strengthening his spinal column. The weight of the prostheses, and any weight lifted by them, would then be more easily distributed through his core rather than localized to any one section of his vertebrae. The means the harness connected to his arms was through external alloy plates that functioned similarly to the human shoulder girdle skeletal structure. The metal extending around his neck for added support and curved around metal ball joints that took the place of the head and neck of a humerus bone. Through these ball joints were how the arms locked into place and essentially “came to life” once they began receiving input from the implanted chips and direct nerve connections.

Unlike the first prototypes, these ones responded with less delay and didn’t require he pick the functionality of one arm over the other. In addition to simultaneous movement between the individual arms the hands–while not the most elegant in terms of prostheses–were far more dexterous with multiple control algorithms programmed in that exploited all the additional degrees of freedom he had available. The range still less than that of an actual human hand, but several steps above the first prototypes.

Like with the original prototypes, Professor Membrane simply looked the prostheses over after attachment as he tested out their movements. Simple ones to start, then working his way all the way up to throwing punches and playing a game of Cat’s Cradle with a piece of string given to him for this express purpose.

... Until the string got caught between the smaller gaps between the prosthetic digits and had to be snapped in half.

The entire time he let himself get a good feel of the new limbs, Entra, his lead in robotics—who’d decided to forcefully insert herself into the project and somehow ended up its main researcher/designer—listed off all the inner workings and mechanisms of the current design. The entire time she spoke she projected the same aura of an excited child, circling around him while being suspended in the air by a recent invention of hers that used similar tech to what had been used to develop his arms. A harness of her own with retractable cable-like appendages controlled via microchip implant. Another prototype used in testing the effectiveness of the implant she’d designed that he then improved upon for use with prostheses.

Judging by how she was still utilizing the harness, she was obviously enjoying the benefits of having extra appendages. And the Professor had to admit, seeing the five-foot-tall woman use the limbs to move around and lift herself up to, and even _above_ , his height did seem like it would be fun.

Something he would shelve away for another time once he got all the functionality in his arms down.

“The next prototypes made using your adjustments and notes should feel even more like a natural part of your body, even if they still won’t necessarily _look_ it.” Entra said as Membrane stretched the arms and digits in a manner similar to someone cracking their knuckles in preparation for getting down to serious business. “Other than full-range control, pressure and grip strength application algorithms also still need more work until they’re finally running smoothly and without delays.”

“Send what you have for them currently to my inbox and I’ll see what I can do.” The Professor allowed for his arms to rest at his sides. Or, at least as close to his sides are they were able. “Worst comes to worst I’ll end up having to rewrite them from scratch.”

“You got it, boss.” Entra shot him a double thumbs-up before the cable limbs on her back lifted her up to the landing. One that was two stories above in the high ceiling lab and was where her work desk was located. “Oh yeah, before I forget!” Her head suddenly popped back over the edge of the railing to look down at him, hands cupped around her mouth to amplify the sound of her voice. “We’re still figuring out how to get the charge amplifiers and piezoelectric sensors to work in more locations of the prostheses for accurate texture readings. Currently, only those installed in the fingertips are functioning! So they’re likely _not_ going to be included in the wearable models I’ll have prepared for you next time!”

“Just send me what you have for that as well!” Membrane mimicked Entra in cupping his hands to project his own voice loud enough for her to hear. A part of him feeling incredibly pleased that he was even able to _move_ the arms in such a manner at all.

He had to contain himself, had to maintain the appearance of a man in a position of authority who was _completely_ and _utterly_ professional in every way. His reputation was already being questioned and discussed widely by his employees after his broadcasted meeting escape over a month ago now.

... But in the end, he couldn’t resist engaging in a bit of stimming with his new arms.

Just a bit.

Just because he _could_.

“Look at you, being all cute.”

At hearing those words, accompanied by laughter, the Professor immediately froze on the spot before collecting himself to snap back into a proper stance.

“Cynthia, _please_ ,” He sighed as he turned to meet her gaze. He hadn’t heard the doors open when she’d come in and wasn’t sure how long she’d actually been in the lab. From her expression, he guessed it was most likely a couple of minutes at least. “I’m a grown man, far too old to be called ‘cute’.”

“You’re _never_ too old for cute!” Entra called out from above.

“ _Your_ input _wasn’t_ asked for!” Membrane snapped with furrowed brows as he looked upwards to where he thought the woman may be. Aggressively pointing with one hand in the same direction he’d thought he’d heard her voice coming from.

His reaction only caused Cynthia to laugh from further amusement as she moved to his side.

He found himself thanking _god_ of all things that these two were the only ones to see him flailing around excitedly in the same way he did often as a small child. He couldn't imagine what kind of response Lucius would have had, even if the man had spent years humoring his paranoia and hatred of Santa while gritting his teeth before he had ultimately been proven right about the figment of children's imaginations being real and EVIL as he'd always insisted. There were some aspects of himself he didn't want even him of all people seeing.

“Were you given the all-clear to leave with them on?” She asked as she placed a hand on the metal of one of his arms. Looking them over before unfolding his coat she’d been keeping draped over one arm.

“Yes.” The Professor nodded as he slowly reached out to take the coat being offered to him. Despite his previous experimentation with the movements his current prostheses were capable of, he still took to pulling on his lab coat with slow methodical movements.

This was the first time in months he’d been able to put on any clothing of his all on his own. The previous prototypes hadn’t been advanced enough for him to perform the needed actions. If it were still possible, his hands would have been shaking with nerves as he did each button. Though if they _had_ been shaking, that would have actually been the sign of something wrong in the programed algorithms or mechanisms of the arms themselves. Especially since they hadn't been programmed to respond to emotional input data.

“Though of course, it’s probably inadvisable I wear them for a full day’s duration just yet.” He continued as he did the last of the buttons, painfully aware of how closely Cynthia was watching him in case he should still need her assistance in this mundane task.

“It’s good you’re already aware, Fess,” Cynthia stepped forward to adjust the cuffs of his sleeves and then smoothed out the wrinkle in the fabric over his chest while he pulled on his gloves. “because there’s no way I would have let you go to bed with them.”

"I doubt that would be comfortable anyhow."

The Professor rolled his eyes as the two of them headed out of the lab and began making the trek towards the private garage where his car was parked. Cynthia, of course, had done all the driving involved in bringing him here and it went without saying she would do the same for getting him home. As much as he wished to actually sit behind the wheel himself, it was still far too soon for him to even consider attempting it. Even if he had become quickly adept with his new prostheses, the impact of the existing response delay was not something he wanted to put to the test while driving a 2,871-pound vehicle.

* * *

The trip home had mainly been a quiet one.

The Professor had sat in the back seat where no one would see him through the tinted windows and spent the time looking over data and blueprints via a handheld tablet. The simple action of carefully holding and typing on the LCD screen of the device, even if the actual sensation of touch was nonexistent, was strangely comforting after not being able to for so long.

Though it was nowhere near the same level of comfort being able to fix himself and Cynthia up a cup of tea with his own hands brought.

A simple mundane thing that meant so much now.

Not long after he’d finished enjoying his cup on the living room couch, Dib and Gaz both returned home from skool. And their eyes immediately lit up when they saw him sitting there and demanding he take off his lab coat so they could see in full the new prostheses he was sporting.

“Now these ones are _much_ cooler.” Gaz said as they sat down beside him once the coat was off and he was left with just the custom compression top. The fabric of the top acted as a barrier that prevented the metal from making contact with his skin beyond where both the limbs and harness directly connected to him. It made wearing both of them far more comfortable and reduced the chances of getting burned if the metal became overheated. And it would also prevent him from getting frostbite in the winter months.

“Cooler _and_ more functional.” Membrane lightly chuckled as he wiggled the fingers on both hands in a demonstration, only for both his hands to get snatched up immediately by the much smaller ones of his children.

“What’s your max grip strength with these things?” Dib asked as he turned over the hand he was examining. The mechanical limb held right up to his face.

“57.5 kg,” Professor answered as he flexed the digits. “though I may look into seeing how far I can increase it in the future out of scientific curiosity.”

“What about feeling things?” Gaz asked next while lining up her palm the best she could with his much larger one.

“Not possible yet,” he said while giving his daughter’s hand as gentle a squeeze he could replicate. Her usually narrowed eyes opening up in child-like wonder from the simple action. A small part of him noted that—excluding the time in the hospital with his first prostheses—he hadn’t held Gaz’s hand in an affectionate manner like this since she was _four_. The realization causing a knot to form in his throat that he did his best to ignore. “still a few kinks to be worked out in the sensor layouts and connections. Much like with the movement control algorithms to reduce the delay to the smallest decimal scientifically possible…”

He then fell quiet as he regarded his children for a moment. And they, in turn, looked up at him quizically at his sudden silence and withdrawing of his hands.

“You okay, dad?” Gaz lightly touched at his chest.

“Yes, honey, I’m fine.” The Professor reassured as he reached forward with one of his hands again but stopped just short of cupping her cheek. A part of him was still hesitant on whether he believed these arms were functionally acceptable enough for the actions he planned to attempt.

His decision was ultimately made for him when Gaz leaned into his hand, eliminating the gap between them. Dib took the initiative by doing something similar, taking his other hand and lifting it to rest on top of his head. The Professor took these actions as him being given the okay to engage as he wanted, granting him the resolve to finally move the arms and pull both his son and daughter in an embrace.

His hold on them was both awkward and loose. A combination of how much a stranger he had become the action as well as his fear in possibly asserting too much strength with his new arms. Harming his children, even if by accident, was not something he was willing to let himself do anymore. And doing so during an attempt of showing them the affection they'd been neglected for so long was a thing he _definitely_ wouldn’t accept.

“…This is the worst hug ever.”

Gaz’s comment made the Professor tense for a moment. But her soft laughter and the feeling of her returning the hug dispelled his worries.

“I’ll add that to the list of things I still need to improve on.” He allowed himself to tighten the hold his arms had on both his children.

Then the flash of a cellphone camera went off, and the moment was ruined.

" _Really_?" Membrane sighed when he raised his head to look towards the culprit. Who was, of course, no one other than Cynthia

"How could I _not_?" The older woman laughed as she set the phone—the _Professor’s_ phone—down on the coffee table after seeming to forward the picture to her own. “It was a sweet moment, and one I’m sure you’d have wanted a photo of anyhow! A few years from now when you go looking through your family photos, you’ll thank me.”

“Fair enough.” He really couldn’t argue with that logic. And frankly, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in any photos with his children. Another thing that would need fixing.

“Now then.” Cynthia clapped her hands together. “I’ll go and get dinner ready. Though it’ll be last I make for you on my own.”

“The last?“

“What do you mean?”

Dib and Gaz seemed almost distraught at that, the Professor himself was also a tad confused behind the meaning of Cynthia’s words.

“Well, because your father now has arms that he’s more comfortable with using,” she started with a smile and turned to look at him.

He instantly knew where this was all going.

“From now on he’ll be helping me as a part of his rehabilitation.”

“Uuuuuuh,” The Professor slowly stood up from the couch. “Cynthia—“

“How does _cooking_ help him rehabilitate?” Dib cut his father off, obviously curious for the reason behind the decision.

“Cooking is one of many activities upper limb amputees are encouraged to engage in for helping with learning to use their prostheses for everyday tasks.” Cynthia held up a finger like a teacher educating her students as she explained. “And since cooking— _baking_ even _—_ can go from being simple to complex depending on the recipe and ingredient measurements, it’s just as much science as mixing together dangerous chemicals in a lab.”

“Dad _does_ work with a lot of hazardous chemicals.” Gaz slightly nodded her head as both she and her brother exchanged a look before looking back towards their father.

“Which is why it’s the perfect activity to help him learn to work with his new hands!”

“Makes sense.” Dib agreed.

“Now hold on...!” The Professor began before any more decisions could be made without his say. “There’s still much I’ve yet to perfect in their design. Wouldn’t it be more effective if we saved those activities for _after_ I’ve completed the updated movement algorithms?” He gestured to one arm with the other. “And I’ve also yet to finish designing the automated system I had in mind for attaching and removing them.”

Cynthia cast a suspicious look his way at that while his kids also looked to him with confusion. All three trying to understand why he was trying to talk his way out of this particular activity.

Which is exactly what he was doing.

Trying to talk and rationalize his way out of it for reasons he hoped wouldn’t be realized.

“There should be plenty of other activities suitable for—”

“Oh, that’s right,” Gaz suddenly snickered and the Professor instantly froze. “Dad,” she grinned up at him in amusement. “You can’t really cook anything other than _toast_.”

And there it was.

“Professor…”

Professor Membrane didn’t even have to meet Cynthia’s gaze to feel the weight of her disappointed stare.

“You are _thirty-two_ years old _,_ how do you _not_ know how to cook?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Entra is totally just Entrapta from She-Ra.
> 
> Also, Fess not knowing how to cook is based off how the only thing MY dad knows how to cook is fried eggs.


	2. Chapter 2

After his ineptitude had been exposed by Gaz, the Professor had been immediately dragged— _literally dragged_ —by his prehensile hair and brought to the kitchen right then and there. Cynthia’s original plan of allowing him a day or two of rest before the next stage of his rehabilitation regiment getting thrown out the window right. His fate of helping prepare all future meals was sealed earlier than planned, and nothing he said would change his caretaker’s mind.

The Professor’s children had found the entire predicament he’d been thrust into thoroughly amusing. Snickering and laughing outwardly as he was overpowered by Cynthia, the foot and a half of height he had over her doing no favors. If anything, it only made it all the more hilarious to them and acted as encouragement to treat sitting at the dinner table like first row seats at a sports game. And once they were seated, and an apron tossed over his neck by Cynthia, the first cooking lesson had begun.

The planned dish of the evening had been Chicken Fajitas, a recipe that Cynthia assured Professor was simple enough for him to manage just fine. And perhaps he would have, under normal circumstances.

If he still had his original arms.

Or if his children weren’t watching with more interest than he’d ever seen them display when it came to food. It was more than enough for him to feel put under pressure. And dealing with pressure wasn’t something he had a good handle on lately.

Dib and Gaz being so transfixed on him and what he did, caused memories of last month’s meeting to flash through his mind. In particular, the moment his prostheses were revealed.

And subsequently, that lead to recalling the life-altering event that had lead to him having them.

Eyes staring at him...

The uncontrolled variables of third party responses. Responses and results with a high possibility of producing _negative_ results.

Negative and even _fatal_ outcomes he’d _**overlooked**_.

Eyes staring at him…

Expectantly—

Worriedly—

Excitedly—

The center of attention...

_Like a fish in a tank._

Where he belonged.

_Where he didn’t want to be._

Where he thrived.

_Where he almost died._

Silence...

Confusion—

Horror—

_Horror_ —

Screaming—

Questions—

 _Screaming_ —

_Questions_ —

 _Pain_ —

_**Questions**_ —

**_P A I N—_ **

The Professor didn’t realize how close he was to succumbing to panic as the memories swirled and mixed in his head. Not until he was snapped back to the present by Cynthia who had been repeatedly calling out to him. Making him aware of the fact he had been tightly gripping at the countertop with the full strength his prostheses were able to produce till they shook from the effort like the rest of him. And even then, it wasn’t her voice that pulled him out of it but the feeling of her hand cupping the side of his face.

“Fess?” She looked up at him, eyes full of concern. Any anger and disappointment from before had vanished from her gaze sometime between her getting him to stand at the counter and his sudden callback.

“Uh... I... Ah…” He stared blankly at Cynthia for a moment before sucking in a breath and pulling back slightly. Just enough for the contact to cease and for him to risk turning his head to glance back towards his children. His children whose worried stares he could still feel heavily weighing down on his back.

“Dad...” Dib started, eyes flickering to the counter rim he still held in a death grip so tight the marble was starting to splinter at his metal fingertips. “You okay?”

Gaz, ever his observant and understanding little girl—despite how she carried herself—spoke up before he could.

“He’s not comfortable being in the spotlight.”

“What?!” Dib seemed shocked at that suggestion. “But it’s _dad!_ He _loves_ having people watch him!”

As they spoke, the Professor forced himself to steel his nerves by taking in slow, calming, breaths as he released his hold on the counter.

“Kids—“

“Maybe _before_ he got nearly eaten by sharks in front of a _live audience_ , dumbass.”

“Wha—”

“ _Okaaay_ ,” Cynthia raised her voice when Membrane would not and clapped her hands to gain their attention. “that’s enough, you two!” She shot them the same disapproving looks she usually reserved for him.

“Sorry.”

“Sorry...”

“Maybe it would be best if you two—”

“No!” Professor Membrane surprised himself by how quickly he had blurted that out, making himself the center focus again. “I mean...” he cleared his throat and put on the best imitation he could muster of his old self-confidence and charisma. “it’s perfectly _fiiiine_. It would be for the best anyhow if you stayed to...” _help me overcome this._ “to... learn along with me...?”

He turned to look at Cynthia as if seeking approval and confirmation on if that was indeed the right thing to say.

She gave his concealed face a thorough looking over before letting out a sigh.

“Only if you’re sure you’re okay with it.” She responded quietly.

“Yes.” He nodded a bit too quickly, gaze flitting back to Dib and Gaz.

They were still watching him just as intensely as they had before, only now instead of grinning with amusement, their expressions were as serious as can be.

Somehow that didn’t make the situation any better.

Taking in a deep breath, the Professor tried to will himself to just disconnect, to just focus and listen to the directions Cynthia gave him.

Just _disconnect_.

Remove himself from what happened.

Don’t think about it.

_Don’t think about it._

But not thinking about it at least once every now and then was _impossible_.

Not just because of the impact it had had on him physically and psychologically. But because no matter where he looked, the entire debacle was _still_ being discussed on television and online any time he dared to access any source of news.

And not just about his arms, but his _other_ losses as well. This fact suggesting someone amongst the little staff on the need-to-know had leaked out the information on how his injuries weren't limited to his arms. The crude jokes and comments made at his expense did nothing but increase the amount of salt being rubbed into the wound. Late-night talk shows and other programs not even remotely considered legitimate news sources felt the need to beat what little pride he had left like a long, _long_ , dead horse.

At the very least he hadn’t had to deal with calls or reporters coming up to his door asking for interviews. His security teams prevented that from happening since his address was public knowledge and not exactly impossible to get to. They were on particularly high alert too after someone unapproved managed to slip by the perimeter they had around his street. A damned rat of a woman with her handheld camera who kept trying to get a look in through the windows when he wouldn’t open the door as they yelled out questions like: “How are you coping with the loss of your dick?!”.

Seriously, where were these people’s science damned _boundaries_?!

She was only on his property for a total of five minutes before being forcibly escorted away. But the Professor had been very, _very_ , close to just activating the house’s security system to vaporize her on the spot.

Legal ramifications be damned, that was considered full-blown _harassment_ and he would maintain his right to retaliate _however_ he saw fit!

Even Lucius agreed with him on that front!

With his anxiety replaced by anger, Membrane managed to get through the entire prep process for the Chicken Fajitas under Cynthia’s direction. He was slow, taking longer than the normal estimated time someone with non-prosthetic arms and actual knowledge of cooking would. And he fumbled a bit with his hands more than ones. But he managed to get it done in the end. The actual process of cooking and all.

He allowed himself to practically collapse into one of the empty chairs at the dinner table afterwards when Cynthia began making their plates. His prostheses hung limply at his sides as he pressed his forehead to the tabletop. They’d only been connected for a few hours now, but the increase in weight, paired with his still not yet fully trained body and his unfamiliarity with wearing them for extended periods, was starting to take a toll on him.

He felt a small finger poking the side of his head, causing him to let out a groan as he raised his head to see which of his children was the culprit.

“Daughter, _please_ ,” He started upon seeing it was Gaz. “Don’t poke me as though you’re checking if I’m dead.”

“But you aren't, are you?”

“ _Gazlene_...” He huffed and himself upright at seeing Cynthia making her way over to them, allowing for her to set down the plates. It was only then he noticed that Dib had at some point pulled out his laptop and was once again staring intently at whatever was on the screens. He couldn’t tell what his son was looking at from the opposite end of the table, but his theory was it probably had something to do with one of the many cryptids he had spent hours talking about and educating him on in the past few months. And while he’d vowed to not belittle his son’s odd interests and hobbies for the time being…

His laptop was still taking up table space.

Though Cynthia said something before he ever got the chance to.

“Laptop away, young man.”

She ruffled his hair and Dib obliged almost immediately with no protest or complaint to be heard. The most the boy did was thank her before digging right in.

“Hey,” He said after swallowing a rather large mouthful. “these aren’t half bad!”

“Surprisingly, considering who made them.” Gaz nodded in agreement before turning to face him. “No offense, dad.”

“You children _wound_ me.” He let out a half-hearted laugh, tho made no move to lift his arms or anything to eat himself.

“Come on, give your father a break now.” Cynthia tsked.

“You mean like you do?” the Professor found himself saying and then regretting it almost instantly from the look shot his way.

Though Cynthia made no comment about his snark and instead brooched a different subject.

“Aren’t you going to eat, Professor?”

“Yes, I am, just…” He rolled his shoulder prostheses as if it would help alleviate the strain he was feeling. “Moving these arms are taking a bit more effort than I’d managed to prepare myself for so far. At least when it comes to extended time periods.”

“Ah, I see.” Cynthia nodded in understanding as she stood to stand beside him, grasping one of the arms and searching for the release mechanisms. “Shall we take them off for a bit, then?”

“Yes, though it can wait till after dinner.” He moved the arm to hold a hand up to indicate he was fine for the moment. Moving to take off his face mask with one hand while the other made a grab for his fork.

Cynthia only nodded, ruffling his hair just as she had his son before taking her seat once more.

As he took a bite of the chicken fajitas—which really were quite good despite his lack of culinary skills—Dib said something that caught both him _and_ Cynthia off guard.

“You know, Cynthia…” He’d started after swallowing another mouthful of chicken. “You act a lot like how I always imagined our grandma might… If we ever met her.”

The Professor nearly began choking on his food, quickly downing his glass of water while Cynthia lightly patted him on the back. Though since she wasn’t looking his way, she didn’t seem to connect his choking at all to the surprising statement his son had made. Even though it _really_ shouldn’t have been.

“Well, I _am_ a grandmother.” Cynthia chuckled lightly. “After I found out your father wasn’t doing his _job_ in making sure you both were healthy and well-fed,” At that, she cast him a sideways glance that nearly had him choking again. “I guess I just adopted you both as my grandchildren on instinct.” Her look softened as her hand moved to his hair. “Just like I seem to have adopted your _common sense lacking_ father here.”

“ _Cynthia, please_ …” He let out a sigh that only carried a vague sense of annoyance as he rolled his eyes.

“It's true though, dad.” Gaz commented. “ But... Is our real grandma _that_ bad a person?”

The Professor was thankful he didn’t have anything in his mouth that time because he would have definitely started choking again for sure. This was _not_ something he was ready to talk about just yet, even if he had brought up the topic of their grandparents to Dib just over a month ago briefly.

“What do you mean?” Cynthia asked before he could attempt to change the subject.

“Well, dad never talks about her or grandpa,” Gaz explained with a shrug. “and we’ve never spoken with _or_ seen them. So…”

“They have to be bad people, right?” Dib finished. “I mean… If they're still alive. The only other reason dad wouldn't bring them up is if they were dead, right?”

A heavy silence followed and the Professor only able to stare at the wall behind Dib’s head. Already mentally bracing himself for another lecture and berating from Cynthia. But instead what came wasn’t that at all, just a small contemplative sigh as the woman ran her fingers through his hair in a manner meant to be soothing.

It was all more than enough to finally make him cave.

“They are...” he said as he met his son and daughter’s collective gazes. “They are dead... Your grandparents...”

“… Figured.” Gaz gave a small shrug, seeming completely unsurprised by this revelation as she continued eating.

Though… He supposed it would make sense they had figured that out on their own by now.

“Yeah,” Dib’s response only confirmed this further. “we kinda expected that was it.”

Now he just felt like an idiot.

Science, Cynthia really _had_ been right about him being a walking oxymoron. He was just so _bullheaded_ and blinded by his own genius before to ever notice.

“It’s not exactly an easy topic to discuss,” Cynthia said in his defense, continuing the soothing head patting as though he was far younger than he actually was. “even for someone like your father...”

* * *

After the awkwardness that was dinner, the Professor found he couldn’t get to sleep that night despite his extreme levels of physical exhaustion.

All he could do was stare at his bedroom ceiling as he lied alone in his bed, his children having retired to their own bedrooms tonight rather than his. Some nights they still curled up beside him like that like they had the night of his discharge, but not always. But he’d come to find he still slept easier when they did from the comfort their presence provided.

Tonight was one of those nights where he would have especially appreciated it.

When his clock finally displayed that the time was one am, he sighed in defeat as he got up from his bed. If sleep were to allude him, he would try and get some work done at least. Though once he sat at his desk and utilized the voice controls to pull up his inbox.

But there was little to nothing for him to work on outside his prostheses related projects and Foodio. He’d not had _anything else_ sent to his inbox _at all_ after that less-than-stellar first physical appearance of his in months at his own company. He wasn’t sure if it was the work of Cynthia pulling the strings as his caretaker—and thus like Lucius took the responsibility of speaking for him—during the three days he was indisposed… Or if those who worked for him _actually_ had suddenly become considerate of his well being enough to leave him to rest.

He strongly suspected it was more likely the _former_ over the latter…

The Professor worked for about an hour on what he could using only voice commands, but he gave up on that as well. Deciding instead to head downstairs and hope maybe if he put on something mindless and dumb enough he could manage to bore himself to sleep.

Though on the way out of his bedroom, he paused to look towards his shut closet door. Somewhere, on the high shelf within, was something he hadn’t thought about in a while that he now had the strong desire to look through.

But he couldn’t at the moment. He didn’t have the automated system to attach his arms so he could go pull it down. And asking his children to do it by having one of them sit on his shoulders was out of the question right now.

He would just have to wait until the morning when Cynthia arrived.

With a sigh, he continued out into the hall and down towards the living room where he turned on the TV using his prehensile hair instead of his foot to operate the remote this time. It still wasn’t any easier, since he couldn’t even see the buttons, but he managed to get the TV powered onto one of the many streaming services he had subscribed to since canceling their cable.

Though in attempting to select his profile out of the three separate ones created for him and his children, he accidentally selected Dib’s. And in his attempt to back out, the remote slipped out from his limb’s grasp and bounced under the couch again where it began to play the first thing that was on his son’s Watch List.

Not willing to get up to try and grab it, he chose to just endure whatever nonsense that would be playing. Perhaps it would do the job in boring him to sleep liked he’d planned on, anyway…

…

…

Well, the show he found himself watching _was_ in fact _nonsense_. But it was nonsense he found himself oddly invested in despite not really knowing what was going on in the plotline .

Or what the hell the _dragon balls_ and other dimensions the characters kept referencing even were.

“… Dad?”

His son’s voice startled him briefly as he turned to see the small boy standing at the entrance to the living room.

“Oh, son,” He gave an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, did I wake you? Is the TV too loud?”

“No…Jus couldn’ sleep…” Dib yawned as he made his way over to the couch. “What are you…?” He started rubbing at his eyes and trying to blink the sleep out of them. Squinting at the screen after a while in confusion. “… Is this my profile?”

“I accidentally clicked on it before dropping the remote.” Membrane explained as his son pulled himself up into his lap. “Didn’t really feel like prostrating myself on the floor to try and get to where it rolled this time.” he lightly chuckled when his son wrapped his little arms around him and snuggled into him further. Even now at ten-years-old, his little boy could still be as adorable as he was as an infant.

The Professor really wished he had his arms on in that moments so he could fix up the boy’s extreme case of bedhead, despite how unscientific he knew wishing was.

“You actually _like_ Dragon Ball?” Dib asked confusedly.

“I’ve no idea what’s going on and am very confused,” He admitted. “but it’s more interesting than I thought it’d be.”

“… Really?” His son woke up a bit more at that and blinked up at him curiously. “Do you… Want to watch it together from the beginning then…? Tomorrow…?”

“I’ll first have to ask Cynthia for permission.” That answer just made Dib laugh like he’d hoped it would. “Seeing as she’s appointed herself as your grandmother.”

“Mhm…” Dib just nodded his head, seeming like he was going to fall asleep again. “Gaz and I really like her… And Gaz doesn’t like _anybody_ …”

“Speaking of like…” Membrane flickered his gaze back up towards the tv. “I was surprised this was the first thing on your account. Aren't you into that, um...” He furrowed the brow as he tried to remember the name. “Mister Mysterious?”

“...Mysterious Mysteries, Dad." Dib corrected him with a sigh.

“Ah, yes, that’s what I meant.” At least he had been close…

“And I haven’t watched that show since they stopped answering my letters and shamed me on public television… Three times.”

Membrane frowned at that.

They did WHAT _?_

_How was he never made aware of this?_

How much _suffering_ had his son endured due to his negligence? _Beyond_ his failure to recognize him that one time backstage or when he hadn’t paid attention to when his team had apparently decided to lock him up in the Crazy House for Boys for the remainder of his life _without his parental consent?_

Oh, oooh, he was going to make _sure_ those Mysterious Mysteries people were _fired_ just as those scientists had been! And he would make sure that they were _never_ –

“and I kinda... _accidentally_ got them canceled...” His son’s sheepish admittance stopped the building rage before he could finish his thought process. “Got a cool mug out of it though."

“… Is that so?” The Professor couldn’t hide the pride he felt in his voice. “Well then, congratulations are in order, son!” The boy’s eyes flew open as he blinked up at him. “Your first success in getting a show responsible for spreading nonsense and fallacies canceled!”

“Uh… Thanks?” Dib seemed taken aback and really unsure about what to say to that. “And not all of the stuff they aired was fake!” He argued briefly before his voice lowered to a mumble. “Though about 70% of the last season certainly was...”

“It’s alright, son.” Membrane attempted to reassure him. Once again wishing for his arms to hug his boy with. “You’re not responsible for whatever drivel the media chooses to air.”

“Mm… True...” Dib nodded, resting his head against his father’s chest as they both watched whatever was happening on the TV screen in content silence.

Eventually, by the time dawn was beginning to break, they had both finally fallen asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gaz got her turn, now it Dib's again.


	3. Chapter 3

“Whoa, dad, you look just like _me!_ ”

“You mean _you_ look like _dad_ , stupid.”

The Professor couldn’t help but laugh at how his children reacted upon seeing photos of him when he was their age. Photos he himself hadn’t seen in years since he first composed the album and then immediately boxed it away. Countless snapshots of him as an infant all the way up till he was six years old when the frequency of those taken suddenly slowed until halting completely.

“If dad’s head had gotten blown up to the size of a blimp.”

“Hey!”

“Come now, daughter, you shouldn’t mock your brother for the size of his head.” He tsked lightly as he tussled his pouting son’s hair. He did so in a slow and careful manner to keep any stray collection of strands from getting stuck between the metal joints of his segmented fingers. “His head’s only so _enormous_ in order for all that extra brain matter to fit!”

“Is that what’s supposed to be in there?” Gaz scoffed, as she started flipping through the album to its first pages. “Cause it sure doesn’t seem like brains.” She halted in teasing her brother upon landing on a page featuring photos of a woman with the same color as her. In the photos along with her were infant and toddler versions of her father. All taken before he’d suddenly sprouted the signature prehensile limb on his head and turned to regularly shaving off his hair.

“Is that grandma?” Dib asked, his annoyance with his sister forgotten as he leaned closer to the album page to get a closer look for himself.

“It is, yes.” The Professor lightly nodded, his previous light tone fading to one of melancholy as he looked at the photos. Unable to help mentally noting how much Gaz visually resembled his mother. The replacement of the Y chromosome in his DNA with a copy of the X in order to create her no doubt the cause for it. He’d just never been able to make the connection before due to how he’d… _forgotten_ what she used to look like without the photoshopped labcoat and goggles…

“Geez, dad,” Gaz laughing snapped him out of darker thoughts before he could dwell for too long on them. “You were a real mama’s boy.”

“… Yes, I… Suppose I was…” He forced a small laugh as his children continued flipping through the album, making comments every now and then. But all he was able to focus on was how progressively _sicker_ his mother began to look in each photo. And then eventually they started reaching pages where her raven hair was gone, one photo, in particular, featuring him as he lay next to her in her hospital bed with an equally bald head.

_“Don’t worry, mama, I’ll save you!”_

But he didn’t.

“I’ll invent a cure!”

_Except it was twenty years too late._

Before he registered what he was doing, the Professor had slapped the album shut.

“That’s…” He cleared his throat and let out a slow breath, entirely aware of how his children were looking at him without needing to see for himself. “Enough reminiscing for today…”

They continued watching him as he stood from the couch and moved to the shelving unit that had been set up behind it. Just one of the many new furniture editions to the house after his outburst last month had led to the destruction of much of the living room.

Though to be fair, the house _had_ been in need of some renovating. It had even ended up being a project he’d directed from his bed after he’d injured his back. Continuing into the weeks that took place after his surgery for implanting the control chips and nerve connection ports along his spine. The house looked a lot nicer and cleaner now as a result.

As he was setting the photo album on one of the shelves next to the ceramic clown-puppy–Cynthia had gifted it to him as a joke during renovations–Dib called out to him to get his attention.

“What was she sick with?”

“… Cervical Cancer.” He answered after a beat and turning to meet his son’s pained, apologetic, face.

“Oh…” The boy seemed to piece together how it was he and his sister’s grandmother had died right quick with that information. “So that’s…” His expression morphing further into one that displayed his lack of knowledge of what to do after learning this information, let alone say. “That’s why you spent so much time researching a cure when we were little...”

The Professor only gave an affirmative nod, unsure of what else to say himself.

“Hey, dad…” Gaz spoke up then, taking it upon herself to salvage their conversation by changing the topic. “Want to play more of that Fall Out 4 Campaign we started?” She held up the game controller. “You know, before Cynthia comes back from the labs and drags you to the kitchen?”

“Hey, no fair!” Dib suddenly became argumentive and turned on his sister. “Dad promised _me_ we’d watch stuff together today! He already spent three hours after dinner playing that stupid campaign with you _yesterday_!”

“… You have no idea how videogame campaign’s work, do you?” Gaz raised a brow in judgment.

“I do too! I know that you–”

“Children…” Membrane sighed as he took a step forward and placed a prosthetic hand on their shoulders. “There is a far simpler and _civilized_ solution to handle this…” He waited a moment until he had both of their attention before leaning back to stand up at his full height. “Whichever one of you finishes cleaning their room first decides which activity we do before dinner. The other will then be what we do _after_. Sound fair?”

Both Dib and Gaz looked at him silently and wide-eyed for a moment before turning to look at one another. Their expressions unreadable at first until Gaz suddenly grinned and was the first to jump down from the couch.

“Too easy!” She exclaimed as she made a dash for the stairs before her brother could register what was happening and scrambled to catch up.

"You can't just get a head start like that!" He called after her. "That's cheating!"

"It doesn’t count as cheating if you're just slow!"

"Does _too!_ "

"Does _not!_ "

"Does _**too!**_ "

The Professor listened as the sounds of his children's hurried footsteps became faded, accompanied by muffled bickering. He was unable to keep himself from quietly laughing in amusement as he sat himself back down onto the couch. Previous feelings of remorse and guilt were now slowly being replaced by spreading warmth and lightness. He was thoroughly touched by their eagerness in wanting to involve him in their preferred activities.

Though another part of him knew very well the reason why.

He recalled the things his son had said just over a month ago. How he believed once he was able to return to work as normal, with complete functioning prosthetic arms, he would also go back to hardly being home and spending time with them. And while Dib had been the only one to vocalize this, no doubt Gaz was harboring similar worries. Even with his constant attempts at assuring both of them otherwise.

He really hadn’t been the best father to them. He knew that now.

Shaking his head before he could be swarmed by depression and guilt once more, the Professor plucked his handheld tablet off the end table and began going over the movement algorithms of his prostheses. He went over what he’d composed or otherwise entirely rewrote, reviewing their execution in a virtual simulation on the screen to ensure movement commands would operate as directed. The current algorithms appeared to be a vast improvement over those his arms currently ran on, but they were still moving at a _slight_ delay. But more troubling than that was a glitch that would cause the entire prosthetic limb to spasm at random after too many repetitive motions.

Membrane furrowed his brow as he went back over the algorithms again, scouring the coding for the source of this continuing error. Even reading aloud each string of code followed by an explanation of what each one was responsible for and how it interacted with the lines before it.

Editing a few lines, he executed the simulation once more and observed the readings. His expression becoming more content.

The delay seemed completely nonexistent now in the simulation. He’d managed to do it! He’d succeeded!

But his joy was short-lived.

That exact same spasm glitch was still prevalent.

“Damn...” he lightly cursed, wondering if he would have to start over from scratch for the fifth time.

Maybe if he—

“I’m done.”

The Professor let out a small yelp and nearly dropped the tablet when Gaz appeared to materialize out of nowhere next to him.

“Please don’t sneak up on me like that, sweetheart.” He pleaded as he held one hand to his chest on reflex. The lack of being able to feel his own heartbeat beneath his palm coming off more than a tad jarring despite being expected. “Anyway, you’ve already finished cleaning your room?”

Gaz gave a small nod.

“Really?” The Professor was taken aback by this, “But that was only…” He pulled up the time on his headset. “Ten minutes.”

“My room isn’t a stye like Dib’s.” She smirked pridefully at that fact.

“I see.” Membrane mused, recalling how in the parenting eBooks he’d been reading lately that it wasn’t unusual for a child to claim they had done a given chore without actually doing it. “Let’s go have a look then.” He set aside the tablet and stood from the couch.

“… Okay.”

His daughter took him by the hand, forcing him to hunch forward a bit so he could let her lead him up to her room. Once there, she pushed the door open for Professor to take a look inside and he instantly noticed–asides from everything being clean and organized as she’d said–how strange and out of place he felt. It was all just entirely unfamiliar, from the atmosphere to how she had the room decorated. It was the room of a little girl, _his_ little girl, but not the way he remembered it looking from the last time he’d stepped inside.

… Science, how long ago even was that?

Was it the same time he’d started leaving them home alone?

No.

No, he remembered he used to still come up, tuck them in, and read them bedtime stories on the nights he actually came home from the labs…

At least…At least until he and Dib had gotten into an argument one night.

Membrane remembered it had to do with his refusal to read Dib something from a book claiming to contain real-life ghost stories before bed. His attempt to explain the scientific impossibility of the existence of ghosts, to what was likely a six-year-old Dib at the time, and causing him to cry and throw a fit. The boy going so far as to even slap the science journal he had been reading out of his hands.

He’d taken that as his queue to leave, and his son never again asked him to read to him…

“Can we play now?” Gaz asked just before he could get too consumed by his thoughts.

At some point during his internal musings, he had taken a walk around her room and now stood in front of a shelf of stitched together ‘stuffed animals’ he remembered her showing him once. He’d been right proud of her then.

“In a moment, honey.” He walked over and pat her affectionately on the head. “I’m just going to check in on how your brother is doing with his room and then I’ll meet you downstairs, alright?”

Gaz made a bit of a face as she began

“You mean you if you don’t get _lost_ in there.”

The Professor couldn’t help but raise a brow at that comment before looking down the end of the hall to where his son’s room resided. The lights of the hall being turned off giving way to an ominous vibe as he approached.

“Sooooon,” He called out as he knocked on the door. “How’s the cleaning coming along?”

“Fine, dad!” There was the sound of something falling over and crashing on the floor. “It’s going _fine!_ ”

“... Are you sure?” Professor drew his brows together in concern as he turned the knob to open the door. The action slow due to the response delay as he pushed the door open enough to poke his head inside.

He instantly understood what Gaz had meant about getting lost.

He could hardly even see the _floor_ with all the junk and garbage strewn about Dib’s room—Paper, metal, computer parts, and even other random things he had no idea the intended purpose of.

“Son, what _is_ all this?!” He heard himself asking as he pushes the door the rest of the way open—the movement causing something that had been leaning against it to fall against him.

Dib just stared at him like a deer caught in headlights. His mouth slightly agape as he stood there, frozen mid attempt of gathering random bits of broken machinery and metal.

“Just uh...” The boy’s eyes darted around the room as though this was his first time seeing it in such disarray for himself. “ _Stuff_ I’ve been collecting as evidence for ZiM being an alien.”

Oh for the love of...

Not _this_ again...

The Professor held a hand over his face and sighed, taking a moment to collect himself before looking over the room once more.

“Well... I’m beginning to see now that my attempt at giving you and your sister both a fair chance failed spectacularly.” He admitted. “I don’t think you’ll be getting this cleaned up anytime soon.” He rubbed the back of his neck beneath the metal harness.

“Gaz finished cleaning ages ago, didn’t she?” Dib let the items he was holding drop to the floor, his expression one of annoyance and irritation.

“She did.” Membrane nodded. “But as promised, I’ll still watch that anima with you after dinner.”

“ _Anime_ , dad.” Dib corrected.

“Right, yes, that.” He cleared his throat. “As for the state of your room...” Again he gave it a look over. “How about tomorrow I help you move everything out to the garage?” He caught the way Dib narrowed his eyes at him. “ _With_ Cynthia’s supervision so I don’t hurt myself again, of course.” He quickly amended.

“... Okay.” His son relented, giving a sigh as he walked past him into the hall and down towards the living room.

The second they entered, Gaz looked over the couch to grin victoriously at him as Membrane took a seat on the couch beside her.

“Looks like I win.” She gloated, getting a rise out of her brother who looked as though he were about to have a full-blown meltdown.

“Fine! I don’t care!” He snapped as he angrily threw open the door, the force he used causing Membrane to wince. “I wanted to go spy on ZiM, anyway!”

“Uh… Alright, son.” The Professor started, feeling unsure as well as responsible for this outcome. “Just be sure to be back before—”

The door was slammed shut.

“Dinner…”

* * *

Dib came home just after Professor had finished making enchiladas under Cynthia’s guidance for dinner that night. His temper just as bad as it’d been when he’d stormed out of the house a few hours prior.

The Professor had no idea how to go about cheering him up.

But, Cynthia managed to successfully pry the issue out of the boy with little effort: the competition from earlier.

It was through her stern grandmotherly tone that she convinced Gaz to admit how she’d had an unfair advantage.

And then Membrane himself was in the hot-seat for not thinking to recall the challenge after finding out. With there being not a thing he could do or say in his defense that she would accept as an explanation as to why he hadn't.

But at least it put Dib in a better mood for their streaming marathon, the boy taking his spot in his lap just as he had the night before.

“Okay, so I was thinking,”

Dib began setting up the service as the Professor allowed for his prostheses to curl around him in a loose mock of an embrace. Before Cynthia would help him remove his arms for the night, he wanted to use them to hold his son to him. Even if wasn’t actually holding him and was just letting the arms sit in a way that replicated the action.

“Dragon Ball is a bit hard to get into for a first anime and has around 300 episodes.” His son went onto explain. “But there’s another on my Watch List that only has 64 episodes that I think you’ll like more.” With that, he put on a show that had a cleaner and more detailed animation style.

It took less than five minutes into the first episode for Membrane to understand why his son thought he might enjoy this one.

The protagonist had a prosthetic arm and yet was still capable of performing just as adequately, if not better, than his peers. The only thing they really had over him being age and height, with the latter fact being made into a running joke...

* * *

The next day came and went rather quickly.

The Professor managing to exhaust himself with all the moving around and heavy lifting it took to clear Dib’s room of all the clutter taking it over. Cynthia had been there to help and make sure he didn’t do anything too strenuous, only what his body was currently capable of handling. Anything that required a second pair of hands, or weighed over a certain amount, had been tasked to one of the robots she had brought over from the lab.

How _Dib_ had managed to haul all of this on his own to his room was something Membrane could only theorize.

Once everything was clear, Cynthia had helped his son with tidying up the rest of his space while the Professor sat on the bed to catch his breath. He’d considered himself in reasonably more shape compared to before, but he clearly had a long way still to go.

By the time they usually had dinner already prepared and ready, Dib’s room was FINALLY neat and tidy. Everything that had once taken up the boy’s bedroom space was now boxed away in the garage alongside their two lawnmowers. The Professor hadn’t even been aware of them even owning a lawnmower, let alone _two_. But Dib kept insisting that the second one was an alien spaceship he’d confiscated and was trying to repair. And rather than make a comment on it, the Professor simply let the matter slide for now. His thoughts were instead drawn to the outdated computer tech his son had been utilizing for his skoolwork and para-science.

Dib’s birthday would be in a few months. Three to be exact, since they were already well into December, on the 30th of March. Perhaps he would arrange for his bedroom to be renovated as he’d done with the rest of the house. Updating his son’s computer to one as advanced as the one in his own bedroom included.

But...

They would just have to get through winter and _**that**_ science damned holiday first.

The Professor wasn’t looking forward to it for multiple reasons.

Cynthia had brought up the topic of celebrating the holiday to him later on during the week. Still, he had affirmed that now that Santa had turned murderous and out for blood as he’d always known he one day would, they weren’t going to be celebrating it with him being busy leading the anti-Santa defense squadron.

He was still relieved that he hadn't activated the self-destruct charges Lucius had planted around this time last year. If Dib had called just a minute later...

But there was no point thinking about it now.

No matter what the woman said, Christmas would not be celebrated under his roof with how much it was centered around that 'jolly' fat man. Not even Lucius with all the years as his personal assistant under his belt had managed to convince him to take part in the company holiday festivities. Being labeled a 'Scrooge' was the least of his concerns.

And then Cynthia brought up a point he hadn’t been expecting...

_“But isn’t Christmas also your birthday, Fess?”_

His birthday...

He’d actually forgotten that...

He hadn’t really cared for either day or seen them in a positive light since he was seven years old. The year he had gotten nothing but socks.

The last year his mother had been alive.

And every year after that had been one spent home alone. His father always working the holiday and seeming to forget altogether how it was also the day of his son's birth...

But, being reminded of this did nothing to change his mind. In fact, it only caused him to dig in his heels as Cynthia continued to try and convince him to make a celebration of it.

_“You’ll be turning thirty-three, Professor.”_

She’d said with her typical nagging demeanor while he worked on the arm control algorithms.

_“You won’t be this **young** for much longer.”_

In the present, about a week after that conversation, he just rolled his eyes and scoffed at the memory. Though he didn’t dwell on it long, his latest simulation execution of the new algorithms he’d written for his arms ended up having his full attention. He watched it through the performed motions with bated breath as the program ran the ones that always resulted in spasms.

And where the virtual arm would have begun to stutter and flail, it instead carried onto the next set of movements just fine.

“Aha! _Finally!_ ” He cheered victoriously. “Fully functional real-time movement!” He opened up a panel on his right arm as fast as he could move his current arms, plugging in a cable connected to his computer and downloading the new algorithms into the limb.

When the download reached 97%, Cynthia called up to him from the kitchen.

“Fess, it’s time for your next cooking session!” She exclaimed, but the Professor’s eyes remained trained on the download screen. “You’ll be helping me make chavindecas!”

“Just a moment!”

Once the download hit 100%, he unplugged the arm and began moving it in whatever way he desired. The Professor was unable to keep himself from grinning giddily to himself as he began to head out into the hall and down the stairs. He couldn’t wait to show Cynthia and his children the vast improvement between the arm he’d downloaded the new algorithms to with the other.

Unbeknownst to him, his computer was still running the movement simulation. Stuttering just when it reached the movement set featuring the arm wielding a knife to chop vegetables...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun Dun Duuuuuun


	4. Chapter 4

“Ha! See? Caught it this time!” Professor Membrane would have grinned behind his facemask if his facial prosthetic didn’t already render a permanent one on his face at all times.

He was simply _that thrilled_ at being able to catch the avocado he’d asked Gaz to throw his way as a showing of the improved algorithms at work. After all, last time that he’d asked one of his kids to throw something at him for an algorithm test, the ball used had simply bounced off his open palm. His fingers closing around the space where the ball had been milliseconds before too little too late.

“Nice.” Gaz’s verbal reaction was only a single word, but her small smile and the way her eyes curved displayed how happy she actually was for him and this development.

“What about the other arm?” Dib asked, pointing towards the Professor’s left prosthetic while the right continued to toss the avocado up into the air and then recatching it repeatedly.

In a way, he was subtly showing off the fruits of his labor spent in those long long hours he’d writing and rewriting lines of code when he’d had the time and mental energy to spare.

With this, he was one step closer to feeling more like his physically expressive and reactive self again. The old familiar energy that once powered his movements and actions already beginning to trickle back to him as he continued to play around with the avocado in his hands.

Now it was all just about getting the rest of his body in shape and going over the prototype designs with more intricately laid out working charge amplifiers and piezoelectric sensors. Those would grant him a realistic sense of weight and touch. And once they were paired with the movement algorithms, the prostheses would feel like arms that were truly apart of him and _his_ once hooked up to his nervous system.

And of course, the miniature PEG powered phaser canons. He couldn’t forget those.

“Ah,” Membrane looked towards his left prosthetic that he had left hanging mostly motionless at his side. “I’ve yet to upload the new algorithms to it.” He stopped throwing the avocado and used the unupgraded arm to point at the other. “Just barely finished the upload into this one before coming down.”

“Alright, alright,” Cynthia took that moment as an opportunity to snatch the fruit away from him. “I think you’ve shown off _quite enough_ , Fess.” She handed him a knife to take in the avocado’s place. “Now, _please_ get to slicing the beef into nice and thin slices. These chavindecas won’t make themselves.”

“Ah, yes, of course!” In his excitement, Professor Membrane had actually forgotten that he was actually in the kitchen to help with food prep as part of his rehabilitation and familiarizing himself with his prostheses.

Though now that he improved the reaction time, he surmised the time it would take for him to adjust would be greatly reduced now!

So with an upbeat spring in his step–and after pulling on some gloves–the Professor went over to the counter and began skillfully slicing the hunks of meat set up for him with the speed and precision of a surgeon. And since he legally _was_ a surgeon _,_ one that hadn’t been able to perform a task like this in _months_ , it only boosted his mood and ego further.

Then things went wrong when he started dicing the slices of meat into little chunks.

At first, the arm responded to his commands to chop in the speedy and orderly fashion his real arm would have easily been able to execute…

… And then it just _kept_ chopping.

“No…” the Professor tried to reign the arm back under his control, using his left arm prosthetic to grip at and try to restrict the movement of the right. But the right’s movements seemed to possess strength beyond what had been predetermined. His halting attempt only causing the spasms to worsen and made keeping a firm hold on the prosthetic increasingly difficult by the second. “ _No no no…!_ ”

He'd fixed this.

He'd _fixed_ it!

Why was this happening?!

Were there more spasm points beyond what he’d previously viewed?

“Fess,” Cynthia called out to him from the opposite countertop where she was making guacamole out of the avocado he’d been tossing around like a baseball earlier. “Everything alright over there?”

“Yes! I’m fine! _Fine!_ ” He answered quickly, attempting to pin the spasming, _knife-wielding,_ arm to the table by leaning and putting the weight of his body on it. Though that didn’t help his claims of being ‘fine’ in the slightest.

“Dad?” The Professor heard Dib ask, accompanied by the sound of his chair dragging across the floor as it was pushed back. The squeak of his sneakers on the tile flooring indicating he was walking over to check on him.

_No._

Membrane felt himself go pale as his blood ran cold.

_No, no, no…!_

His son’s footsteps got closer.

“Son, _don’t_ —”

 _PLEASE_ —

“Are you okay?” The question came with a tug to Membrane’s pant leg.

At the same moment, the hold the Professor had on the rogue limb weakened just enough for it to break free. The knife it held stabbing him where his left arm connected at the shoulder and causing him to stagger backward with a yell. The knife managing to have wedged itself in just the right spot to damage the wires that coiled around the ball joint and directly connected to his nerve endings.

There were panicked exclamations and shouts when this happened, but Professor Membrane wasn’t able to respond quickly enough before the spasming arm withdrew the knife and began flailing it around dangerously beyond his control. His left arm now unable to do _anything_ to stop the dangerous movements with its damaged connection. All it could do was hang there uselessly as it twitched and jittered out, waves of pain flowing through his connected nerves all the while.

“It’s alright! There’s nothing to worry about!” Membrane tried to reassure, watching as Cynthia quickly dove to pull Dib out of harm's way when the knife came to close to slashing him across the face. The boy clinging to her as he and his sister just stared at the Professor with wide eyes and otherwise unreadable expressions. “It’s just a minor malfunction!”

But not even the false layer of self-assurance and confidence he wrapped his words in was convincing enough.

“I wouldn’t call something like this ‘ _minor_ ’, Professor!” Cynthia snapped as she glowered at him, getting to her feet after easing herself from Dib’s hold. The boy quickly scampering under the table where his sister had positioned herself when this ‘Dance-of-knives’ first started.

“I assure you! I have this _completely_ under control!” He continued to bury his own panic with the facade of how his former self behaved when he till had the situation in the palm of his hand, no matter how dire things seemed. “I just have to—”

Professor Membrane attempted to stop the arms movements by slamming himself into the side of the fridge. The action causing the metal implanted joint to press painfully into his body as sparks of pain shoot through him at the impact.

“Drop—“

A second ramming yielding the same result of shooting pain.

“The _knife!_ ”

A third and final slam managed to succeed in dislodging it from the prosthetic’s iron grip, sending the kitchen blade clattering to the floor.

But the Professor couldn’t even feel an ounce of relief from this fact, too focused on the throbbing pain that rivaled his experiences of PLP. Then he felt something roughly connect with the back of his knee that sent him to the floor alongside the knife. He happened to land atop the spasming prosthetic in the process, effectively pinning it in place with his full weight as he had before.

Along with the weight of Cynthia.

The older woman had climbed on top of him after successfully knocking him off balance and was now scrambling to disengage the limb’s connection to his harness and body. The mechanisms for which were currently hidden by the shirt he wore. The time it took to feel for them giving the rogue limb time to wiggle its way out from beneath Membrane, forcing Cynthia to move to sit on it to hold it down as she made a grab for the discarded knife.

“ _Wait_ ,” The Professor pleaded for her to stop her when he realized what she was about to do. “Cynthia, _don’t_ —“

The knife was driven into the connecting shoulder joint of the arm and twisted.

All he could do was scream as he was hit with a blinding pain ten times what he’d felt when he first lost his arms. The sheer intensity of which knocked him unconscious.

...

...

...

When his senses came back to him, they did so groggily and with increased delay. Everything muddled and fuzzy as he tried to make sense of all the different multitude of sounds and sensations around him. His vision was incredibly blurred, unable to focus beyond a certain point. But he didn’t need to see the full extent of his surroundings.

Even while heavily drugged, he still knew _exactly_ where he was.

He was back in the small, _suffocating_ , room he’d been trapped in for what had initially felt like an eternity.

“... _Fuck!_ ” He cursed openly and loudly, not bothering to restrain himself once he realized he was alone with no one to hear him. A slur of other curses escaping him uncharacteristically in his heavily medicated and barely conscious state.

Though he wasn’t alone for long.

The familiar WOOSH of the doors sounding not long after he’d gotten out most of his frustration and anguish through his tirade of swears. His jaw snapped shut before any more colorful language could be uttered on the off chance whoever had entered happened to be one of his children. He was still very much ashamed from the first time they had overheard him using such crude words, after all, and didn’t want a repeat of the event.

However, he was unable to sit up properly to try and get a look at who it was. Attempting to do so only revealing to him how he was held to the bed via medical restraints around his ankles, chest, and midsection. The very type of restraints utilized in situations when there was a high chance a patient may pose a danger to either themselves, the medical staff, or both. Restraints that he, unfortunately, remembered being used on his son on more than one occasion. Either by the Professor himself or other medical professionals he had previously handed the boy's mental health care and wellbeing off to.

If he hadn’t already begun to change how he treated and interacted with his children, he sure as hell would have started now.

“Professor?” Cynthia’s familiar voice reached his ears and Membrane instantly turned his head as much as he could to watch her blurred form approach and walk around his bed. “Ah, you’re awake… Good.” From the tone of her voice, she appeared both relieved and tired all at once. The look on her face once she was finally at a close enough distance for him to see with his nearsightedness confirming this. “You gave us all quite a scare. You’ve been in an induced coma for a couple of weeks now. Even after we stopped giving you shots of pentobarbital it didn’t seem like you were going to wake up at first.”

“… You _stabbed_ me.” The matter-of-fact statement was the first thing he said, seemingly offended and emotionally hurt by the memory.

The soft smile Cynthia wore faltered until it faded completely with a sigh.

“I know I did, Fess, I know.” She pushed back the hair that clung to his forehead with sweat. “But I had to so you wouldn’t—“

“It hurt.” He whined much like a child, the drugs in his system still having a hefty impact on his overall behavior. He was far from the composed and attention-commanding adult he was normally.

“I know it did.” Cynthia apologized again.

“It _hurt_.” Membrane repeated, feeling the corner of his eyes stinging with tears.

“Fess…” Cynthia let out an exasperated breath as she held a hand to the side of his face. “Ssshh, sssh, it’s alright...” she stroked his cheek with her thumb in an attempt to soothe him.

And it did.

“Why...” The Professor started, trying to collect his thoughts. “Why did you...” He squeezed his eyes shut a moment to try and focus.

“Your actions gave me no other choice,” Cynthia stated, understanding what it was he was trying to ask. “You being back here instead of resting at home is the result of your own impatience and using yourself as a lab rat.”

“The algorithms… Worked fine in the… the simulations...” He explained as he tried to blink away the remaining grogginess he felt. “I tested—”

“Clearly you didn’t test them _enough_.” Cynthia’s voice then cut him nearly as painfully as the knife had. “Damn it, Fess, I have half a mind to _slap_ you for how much of a melon you’ve been. But my job position prevents me from doing that.”

“You’d just… Hurt your hand…” He chided in reference to the metal that made up most of his face.

“Don’t get smart with me.” She warned, pointing a finger threateningly in his face and causing him to stiffen and recoil. Her hard gaze pinning him in place before she pulled back with a sigh. She then closed her eyes as she took a moment to collect herself. “There’s more I’d like to say to you, but I feel it isn’t my place. Especially when you’re clearly still not behaving like yourself.”

“I’m behaving like myself just... Just fine…” Membrane muttered bitterly as he tried to sit up again, huffing in annoyance when he couldn’t.

“And yet it seems like you’re not all here and your mind’s wandered off thinking about a crab’s immortal—”

“Why am I tied?”

“Ah...” Cynthia bit her lip at that, her anger towards him fading again for the moment. “You were violently spasming from the additional damage done to your nerves.” She explained. “Both from my cutting the prostheses’ connection, and from you stabbing yourself and ramming your shoulder into the fridge.”

“… Oh.”

Cynthia leaned over him then, undoing the upper straps and giving him the freedom to sit up and roll his shoulders. Though she left the ones around his ankles untouched. Clearly not trusting him enough to leave him with the option to try standing on his own.

“My…” The Professor murmured quietly at first as he furrowed his brow only for his eyes to snap open instantly almost a second later in a panic. “My kids!” He frantically turned towards Cynthia, nearly falling over. “Where are my son and daughter?!”

“Fess, calm, _calm_ ,” Cynthia urged as he pushed her to lie back against his pillow. “Don’t work yourself up, now!”

“But the prosthesis malfunction–” He tried to argue and fight against her urgings to relax and rest. The moment his eyes had locked with those of Dib and Gaz as they cowered under the table from him replaying in his mind. “They’re—”

“They’re _fine!”_ Cynthia asserted, managing to get him pinned back to the bed as the WOOSH of the door sounded. “They’ve just been—”

“He’s awake!”

“Finally.”

“… Waiting outside.” Cynthia sighed as she stepped back then as his children stormed his bed, climbing up on top of him.

“Dibromide! Gazlene!” The Professor let out a breath of relief. “I’m so relieved that you’re—”

A small hand slapping him in the forehead cut him off. Sending his head snapping back against the pillow again as he grunted through clenched teeth.

Even when holding back, his daughter still had quite the arm on her. The force even enough to knock the remaining sense missing from the Professor’s state of mind back into him.

“That’s for being the same level of stupid _Dib_ usually is.” Gaz’s reasoning behind the slap was given a cold delivery as she looked him straight on.

“ _Yeah—_ wait...” Dib had started to speak up in agreement but stopped. “I’m not stupid enough to do something like that!”

“Yes, you are.”

“Children…” Membrane lightly hissed from the pain of the slap and was jolted by Gaz grabbing the front of his gown and shaking him.

“What were you thinking, dad?!” She demanded from him.

“What?” He could only blink at her as his mind stuttered to catch up with the situation. His last memory of Gaz and Dib had been of them looking at him with fear from under the table. But right now they were berating and yelling at him as if _he_ were the child and _they_ the parents.

He was not expecting this at all.

“I don’t—”

“You only had those arms for a _week!_ ” Dib threw his hands up as he also started laying in on him. “And you went and broke them just like you did the last pair!”

“That wasn’t—” The Professor tried to argue. “I didn’t—”

“Kids, cut your father a bit of slack.” Cynthia sighed from where she stood, but she made no move to pull them away from him. Allowing them to enact the entirety of their tiny wrath onto him. “The first pair breaking wasn’t his fault, that was purely accidental.”

“He still broke the last pair!” Dib turned to face the older woman while still pointing an accusing finger at Membrane.

“That wasn’t even my intent to start with!” The Professor finally managed to get out in his defense. “I was trying to improve their algorithms so I’d be able to—”

“You trying to ‘improve’ them is what _broke_ them, dad!” Gaz shook him again in an attempt to get him to understand. “You could have waited for the next prototypes to be done first!”

“Yeah!” Dib pipped in agreement. “Plus, you made over a dozen dookie-brained mistakes in the coding!”

Professor Membrane could only blink in confusion at that statement.

“… ‘Dookie brained’—”

“You missed so many things that you would have gotten all up on _my_ case for if I’d made them!” Dib cut him off. “Like…” He began going on a tangent, listing off every error, every typo, _everything_ Membrane had done wrong through sheer forgetfulness or sloppiness. Making it a point to clarify what _should_ have been done and what served as the actual solution for the broken algorithm segments.

Dib’s ramblings went on and on, going on for so long that Gaz left to go get a soda from one of the vending machines several floors below. Cynthia heading out along with her to pay for the beverage, leaving Membrane alone with his son as he continued picking apart every little bit of code from the top of his head.

At first, the Professor was just entirely perplexed, unsure of how to handle having his work and his _intellect_ so harshly ridiculed by his own son while he could do nothing but sit there and take it. He thought he would have felt embarrassed and enraged, and he likely would have if this were anyone else other than his son practically reading him his final rights as a scientist. But no.

While the embarrassment—as well as the gripping claws of depression—was apparent, he was mostly in awe at how easily his son had memorized the full extent of the algorithms he’d coded. And not only had he learned them, but he had also done the work for viable solutions and how they would interact with all the other additional functionalities and sensors once they were implemented in future models.

He felt pride.

This boy was far more intelligent than he was with his years of experience in the multiple fields of study he’d engaged in.

This boy, his _son_.

He would grow up to be a far better man in no matter what path he chose to take his life down than he ever was.

“… Dad?” Dib suddenly stopped mid-rant to look at his father with concern and confusion. “Are you okay? You’re… You’re _crying._ ”

“Ah…” The Professor blinked back tears in his eyes that he hadn’t realized had been welling up. “I suppose I am.” He gave a light laugh.

“… I’m sorry!” Dib suddenly blurted. “Gaz and I weren’t trying to—I didn’t—” the boy struggled with figuring out what it was he wanted to say as he scrambled to grab a tissue from the bedside table to wipe the tears from his father’s face.

“Son, son, it’s alright…” Membrane just let out another laugh. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“… Really?” Dib looked at him as though he were growing a second head. “But… But you’re–”

“I really am alright, son.” The Professor reaffirmed. “Believe me.”

“… Okay.” Dib nodded and then fell silent as he just stood awkwardly on his father’s bed.

A beat passed before the silence was broken by Professor.

“Dib,” His son flinched a bit at the sound of his own name. “the solutions you presented for the movement algorithms… Would you be willing to help me with coding them?”

“Huh?” The boy’s mouth hung open for a moment. “Wait… Really?!” His eyes went wide and he took a step back on the bed. “You want _me_ to help? _”_

"I do, yes _.”_ Membrane lightly chuckled at his son’s amusing reaction _. “_ The help would be greatly appreciated since…I’m clearly failing to manage on my own. And you have a better understanding of how the mathematics work than even some of the senior members of my staff.” He cleared his throat a bit as he lifted his head up to meet his son’s gaze, not missing the twinkle that shone behind his eyes at the compliment. “It would also…” _give us a better chance to bond._ “Allow for you to keep a better eye on me...! Like I’m sure you and your sister were already planning on doing… But, only if you want to, of course...”

“… Yes!” Dib exclaimed while pumping both his fists. “You can count on me, dad! I’ve got your back!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fess' arm going out of control like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jdAsT0ZB-M
> 
> Also, that last line seems familiar, don't it? :3c


	5. Chapter 5

The Professor didn't get a new set of prostheses for well over a month. Not because the process of constructing a new pair was particularly long, 3D printing and allocating the components was easy. It was how he needed to recover from the damage dealt to his severed nerve endings that caused the delay. As well as recovering from another round of surgeries to embed more internal bone prostheses to further strengthen and support his spinal and shoulder structures. A countermeasure to prevent repeated injuries, self-inflicted or otherwise, like those he’d received when the algorithms had failed.

The Professor couldn't help but note how in order to achieve the level of cybernetic integration and prosthetic advancement he was aiming for, more and more of his physical body had to be cut away and replaced each time.

Someone other than him would probably have given into the moral dilemma’s surrounding identity and the self at this point. But it hardly mattered to him. What mattered more to the Professor was how the new prostheses rendered the current prototype models incompatible with his body and forced a great deal of rework to be done to the blueprints for the still-in-development Mk3 prototype arms and spinal harness.

Science marched on, regardless.

During his recovery and time waiting for updates on the newer models, Professor Membrane continued engaging in whatever parts of his rehabilitation he could partake in. A majority of which focused on the muscular development of his body, so by the time the next set was completed—the beginning of February—he was significantly more bulked up than he had been prior. The increased shoulder girth caused by the prostheses no longer looking off or misproportioned but rather natural with his new body mass.

His daughter's comment about how he could intimidate people with not just his height and intellect, but how he could also easily bench press them, gave him a rather large ego boost.

But Cynthia almost immediately managed to knock him back down a few pegs.

 _“You were so scrawny and underweight before, your legs looked like they could easily snap. But now look at you!_ _You finally have some meat on your bones and look like a proper human being!_ _”_

Those statements had just made him entirely flustered and embarrassed.

Another thing to take place during this period was the dreaded Christmas holiday, the day coming and going with mass panic and fear as the possibility of Santa returning to rain terror around the globe loomed overhead. Correspondence between the military and the labs forcing Membrane to have to pull an all-nighter until humanity was in the clear once more for another year. The horrible beast that was Santa Claus thankfully not making an appearance as having been anticipated.

And while the night had been uneventful, the Professor had been run ragged in the days leading up to the dreaded vigil, both physically and mentally, and was forced to stay awake well into the holiday’s morning. The safety of the planet—and more importantly, his own home and family—was on the line, forcing him to endure being served coffee from the previously retired mealtime bot Dib and Gaz had depended on for years to feed them. It helped get him through the grueling hours of monitoring and delivering voice commands, but there were more than a handful of instances where he wanted to stand up and roundhouse kick the damned thing into the wall.

Sure, he liked hearing himself talk, but the programed voice recordings that were more than a bit belittling and condescending in nature—the fact he’d made them for his kids not helping—made him thoroughly sick of and enraged by the sound of his own voice. And by PEG, what had he been _thinking_ when he made the damned thing require his kids hit a Yes/No button for whether or not they loved him before they could be allowed to eat? And while hovering at a height where they’d have to reach out as far as possible to do so, no less?

He ended up delivering that roundhouse kick after all was said and done.

Once the ALL CLEAR was given for every timezone, he promptly collapsed and passed out on his bed for two hours before being woken up by tiny human hands shaking him. He was reminded then of what other significance the 25th of December had when his children suddenly surprised him with individuality wrapped presents—two from them and a third from Cynthia—accompanied by the words “Happy Birthday”.

The Professor was only able to stare in confusion as Dib and Gaz began tearing away the gift-wrapping, explaining after he asked how they knew that Cynthia had told them and that she’d taken them gift shopping at some point when he’d been in his medically induced coma.

He was too taken aback and perplexed by what was happening to even respond as they revealed what they’d each gotten him.

Cynthia’s gift was a long hand-knit scarf because of _course_ that would be the type of gift she’d give. No doubt, she’d probably done the same for her own sons at one point in time.

Gaz has gotten him a new face mask, one that extended down around his neck. But instead of being plain like his previous had been, it had a design printed over its service to make it resemble the Power Armor from the game they’d been playing together. She’d also apparently made adjustments to the mask to include ventilation valves because she noticed the difficulty he had breathing while wearing his other coverings when he was physically active.

Dib’s gift, however, was the one that managed to make him laugh before the overwhelming collection of emotions he felt in the moment caused him to break into tears. It was a mug shaped to resemble the head of one of the characters from the anime they’d been watching together he’s said he was fond of in an offhand comment. It was an accurate representation, and because of that it birthed the ridiculous thought of him using it to drink tea while at the labs while his staff stared in confusion.

It had taken a bit for Professor to reassure his children that the reason he was crying was a _good_ thing.

The final collection of events that lead up to the eventual development/procurement of the new prostheses prototypes was the expanse of hours dedicated to redesigning the arms and rewriting their movement algorithms. Hours the Professor spent working alongside his son—and his daughter too, on occasion—after both children returned home from skool for the day and they finished up all their other planned activities. Hours that added up to several days and weeks in total until they _finally, FINALLY,_ achieved their goal.

Not only movement functioning in real-time via nerve connection and the implanted brain chip, but working touch and weight sensors distributed throughout the whole of the hand. Getting them to operate accurately throughout the entire expanse of the arm along with devising a method to deliver surface temperature readings of an object still presented a whole slew of problems. But, the hand was more than a decent start! _Definitely_ leagues above the models that only offered functionality in the flattened ends of fingertips.

When the Professor finally received the MK 3 prototypes, his children were in attendance to witness their attachment via the automated system in Entra’s lab. A process that took only a few minutes and caused some mild discomfort—some kinks still needed to be worked out in the apparatus—but eventually, he stood before them both with arms at the ready.

Literally.

In appearance, the exterior of the newer arms was identical to that of their predecessor. The real changes lying in the overall weight and the component layout beneath the metal plating. The spinal harness, meanwhile, had the most changes done to it, appearing sleeker and streamlined further to his form compared to the previous version. It still added a bit of bulk with the parts that acted as an exoskeletal version of the human shoulder girdle and where it clung around his neck, but an improvement was an improvement.

“ _Oh!_ ” Membrane exclaimed suddenly when he clasped both prosthetic hands together during a test of their responsiveness. His entire body jolting and shuddering like it was struck by lightning as, for the first time in over half a year, he felt the sensation of touch with the _palms_ of his _hands_. “Oh that—” The fact that the sensation was that of metal on metal where his mind would have originally expected flesh on flesh adding to the strangeness the sudden return of feeling brought. “ _That_ feels _weird_.”

“Good weird or bad weird?” Entra—who was still utilizing those mechanical arms of hers make herself the same height as him—asked as she got up close into his personal space. The closeness forcing the Professor to lean backward till he was dangerously close to falling over. “Depending on the type of weird it is there might be further tweaks and adjustments I have to make to the data input and output collection of your design.”

“Not mine _alone_.” He corrected, holding up his hands in a manner that was meant to indicate his fellow scientist step back. Though the action was moot since she maintained the same level of closeness. “A majority of it was completed with help from my son and daughter.”

“… _Oh yeah!_ ” Entra beamed at the sudden reminder of the younger Membranes and Cynthia also being present in her lab. The shift in her expression following her quickly removing herself from his bubble and popping up beside where Gaz and Dib sat instead. Dib on a workbench and Gaz atop of Entra’s spherical robot assistant that was currently in sleep mode. “You two are quite the little engineers, ain'tcha?!”

“Uuuuuh.”

“…Sure.”

While Entra was distracted by peppering his children with questions, Membrane let out a sigh as he relaxed his stance before he began to take the time to get a literal feel for the new prostheses. He ran the fingertips of one hand up the full length of the others arm, testing the texture of every groove in the plating and where it connected at the shoulder to the harness and his body with varying levels of pressure. The fabric of the compression top when parts of a finger brushed against it sending another more mild shiver through his body as he processed the feel of the material. Then he repeated the motions with the other arm using the opposite hand until the senses slowly gained a sense of familiarity and his curiosity was sated.

Though it wasn’t _entirely_.

“Entra, Cynthia,” he called out then, ceasing the background chatter that had been going on up till then. “… Would you please grant me a moment with my kids?”

“… Why do you need a moment with them?” Entra questioned in contrast to Cynthia’s nod of agreement. “If there’s something that you need to discuss about— _ack!_ ”

Cynthia grabbed Entra by one of her pigtails at that moment and began dragging her out of the lab. Every question or exclamation of protest that came from the younger woman being completely ignored. The Membrane family unable to help but watch the entire scene in silence up until the doors finally closed behind them.

“Man, if I didn’t know better I’d think that lady was our aunt or something.” Dib commented. “She acts a lot like you when you’re excited about science, dad.”

“Honestly, I’d believe it if she said she was.” Gaz let out a small chuckle in agreement. “She’s got purple hair too, so even that checks out.”

“Children, there is absolutely no relation between myself and Entra.” Membrane sighed as he moved to pinch his brow but stopped himself short before coming in contact with the skin.

“I don’t know, dad.” Gaz lightly grinned. “You didn’t tell us anything about grandma and grandpa until just a few months ago.”

“… Yeah!” Dib suddenly chimed in, picking up on what Gaz was getting at. “How do we know we don’t have any other relatives you’ve never told us about.”

“Son, daughter, I assure you,” The Professor chuckled under his breath as shook his head and walked towards them. “There aren’t any other secret relatives I’ve not made you aware of.”

He knelt in front of them both so he was closer to their eye-level, one hand raised, as they gave their teasing responses of ‘sure, dad’ and ‘whatever you say’. Once they saw what he was doing, their mirthful smiles fell away as they grew quiet, regarding him and his raised hand with curiosity and a touch of apprehension. Both of them physically leaning away from the hand momentarily as they appeared to recall what had happened the last time their father had had working prosthetic hands.

“It’s alright,” Membrane quietly reassured, noticing how their gazes were trained on the prosthetic and deciding to flex the individual digits to demonstrate he had complete control this time. Refusing to move any closer to either child until they both no longer appeared tense or had the same level of distrust behind their stares.

Perhaps he would start wearing his lab gloves to cover the arms at home again to make them more at ease.

Before he himself could become gripped with doubt, the Professor carefully reached out to touch the top of Dib’s head. Part of his metal palm touching the boy’s forehead while the rest of his hand rested itself amongst his hair.

On contact, he again jolted at the rush of once familiar sensations that hit him like new.

Smooth rubbery skin…

The slight greasiness of soft black hair running between his fingers…

Senses of touch associated with his son.

“Um, Dad…” Dib spoke up after a long moment of quiet had passed. “Are you okay?”

“Hmm?” Membrane blinked.

“You look like you’re going to start crying again.” Gaz drew attention to the way his brow had begun to furrow.

“Oh, yes,” He did his best to reign his emotions in before he actually could. Knowing if he didn’t that[’s what would most certainly end up happening. “I’m fine, children. I just…” He continued to lightly pet his son’s head, this time not having to force himself to mind the pressure and force behind his touches. He could just let himself focus on the feeling of the action instead while his son gently smiled back at him. “I hadn’t realized how much I actually missed this.”

He turned to Gaz then while lifting up his other hand, waiting for her nod of permission to use it to cup her face just as he had after first receiving the previous prostheses. Lightly stroking her cheek for a moment before he withdrew both hands and moved to stand. Then before they could ask what he was doing, he lifted them both up into his arms with relative ease. One arm looped beneath them to support their weight while the other hugged them close to his chest.

Though he seemed to do so a little too tightly at first from how they squirmed—likely the effect of missing touch/pressure feedback from the full lengths of his arms—forcing him to adjust so they could return the gesture.

“How’s this in comparison to the last one?” He asked, mostly jesting but genuinely curious how they’d grade his attempt. Knowing that he was still outside his depth when it came to the science of giving perfect hugs.

“Hmm…” Dib pursed his lips in thought for a moment.

“Solid 3.5 out of 5.” Gaz said with what sounded like complete seriousness despite the faint smile on her lips. “Not the worst, but not the best either.”

The Professor could only laugh at that response, adjusting his hold on his daughter while helping Dib climb up to sit on his shoulders when he felt him start moving to do so. Reaching up with one hand to make sure his son found proper balance sitting with his little legs wrapped around his neck.

“I’ll continue looking into making improvements.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've reached the conclusion of yet another part!
> 
> See you all in the next one: "Miniature PEGS and Childergy"


End file.
